Writing Portfolio

March/April 2020

Nevada Magazine

Rattlesnake Club: A New Spot to Sink Your Teeth Into

The Rattlesnake Club offers a new vision for elevated dining in Northern Nevada. At the helm of the project is pulmonologist and restauranteur, Dr. Jeff Bacon. He’s on a mission to bring the best in locally grown, seasonal fare to the region. The Reno restaurant has overcome numerous road bumps since opening in June 2019, making the club’s hard-won success all the sweeter.

December 2019

American Trails Magazine

Preserving Nevada’s Psychedelic Past

In 1965, long-haired draft-dodgers and drug dealers dressed as Cowboys and Indians bought and renovated the Comstock House, transforming it into the Red Dog Saloon, a hippie enclave with a light show machine and a gun-slinging psychedelic band. Today, Loren and Sue Pursel preserve its colorful history.

Ripley’s Believe It Or Not

May/June 2018

Nevada Magazine

Finding Bliss at Kerouac’s

By the time you reach the easternmost edge of U.S. Route 50, affectionately known as The Loneliest Road in America, Kerouac’s restaurant in Baker feels more like a mirage than a reality. The brainchild of chef Jake Cerese and architect Kate Claeys, Kerouac’s vintage décor (think 1930s Underwood typewriter) and high-end American fare represent the perfect homage to life on the American road.

March/April 2017

Nevada Magazine

4th Street Bistro

As a mainstay of Reno’s culinary culture for close to two decades, 4th Street Bistro continues to flourish. Along the way, Chef Natalie Sellers (of Chez Panisse distinction) and General Manager Carol Wilson have inspired some of northern Nevada’s most significant restaurant trends.

May/June 2015

Nevada Magazine

The Comstock Summer of Love at 50

Long before burners engulfed the playa of Nevada’s Black Rock desert or steampunkers rocked their first Comstock counterculture balls, there was the Red Dog Saloon. From June to August of 1965, this establishment-defying enclave on C Street in Virginia City made history by launching the Charlatans—a music-fused mix of rock ’n’ roll, costumes, guns, and mind-skewing substances.

Fall 2011

Pacifica

Entertaining the Comstock

Virginia City has a 150-year history of myth making, and it consciously (and unconsciously) plies its carefully crafted reputation as a lawless mining community to this day. In this unlikely setting, the most fundamental elements of the psychedelic esthetic in music, art, and personal style would be born, and many can be attributed, either in part of in full, to the influences and inspiration of the “Wild West” community into which members of the emerging counterculture scene settled.